Nokia C5-03 review: Media

The music player interface is clearly organised by artists/albums/playlists/songs and podcasts and continues to play in the background once you've exited the player, appearing on the Home screen for ease of pausing and skipping tracks.

Playback resolution is pretty good, especially compared to the web-based Flash Lite videos,succumbing to only a little pixelation and the 3.5 inches of screen here is a nice size to gaze at when watching your episode of Diggnation.

Supported file formats pretty much end at mp4 and 3gp, so there's not a lot of choice there. That aside, it's a nice little player and we had no problems with it other than using it with headphones – the volume output was decent but when cranked up to full volume, the sound quality is shrill and uncomfortable to listen to.

The speaker volume is impressively loud, but let's be honest, you're not likely to want to serenade the 46 bus with an episode of your favourite podcast.

The gallery is, again, a simple interface, the contents of which can be easily sorted by file size, or by folders, depending on your preference. Music is separated out from images and videos and given its own menu tab, but songs can still be found in the gallery, for those who like everything in one place.

When it comes to the pre-loaded Nokia C5-03 Youtube app you get two options: either watch it in miniature or watch a few blurry pixels in full screen mode. In short, don't bother with it, it'll only end in pain.

The choice of podcasting is fairly limited, unless you connect the Nokia C5-03 to your computer and pull files you've downloaded via iTunes, but downloading is quick (two minutes for a 40min MP3 podcast over a Wi-Fi network, though MP4 podcasts take substantially longer).

Using the uncomfortable moulded plastic headset provided results in somewhat muffled speech, but the sound quality improved a little with the use of our own earphones.

Listening in loud places won't be easy though, given the volume doesn't go high enough, and listening to Ricky Gervais's voice became a pretty painful experience, what with his tendency to get a little shrill and all.

The FM radio is clear, with little distortion and instantly scans to set up radio stations for you at a click. Nice for walking to the tube and catching up with your morning music/news.